DesR85 wrote:If an RPG (or any other game) is open-ended in terms of selecting the gender of a main character, I'll go for a male one, seeing that I'm a guy myself. It's more to just reflecting what you are, if you ask me. By the way, why do you want to include some certain attributes on the different genders such as one has certain advantages/disadvantages over the other?
So, if I choose to play as an evil half-ogre thief, would that just reflect what I am? I sincerely hope (for your own sake) you will answer "NO" because the dragons
do breathe fire occasionally... :mischief:
The principle of advantages/disadvantages is a very common one. You trade something for something. If you look up the races in D@D, for instance, you will notice that some races have significant benefits. The game will try to offset that with a slower level progression or by adding some weaknesses to the set. This balance is extremely important. Another example: a super-strong vampire has a weakness to fire and suffers penalty to his/her attributes (and takes damage from the sunlight) during the day.
In ES males/females have slightly different starting attributes.
In the earlier Elder scrolls games there was a section during the character creation where you could
choose a disadvantage (or several). It gave you more points to distribute towards advantages, which you could also choose. Later on Bethesda simplified their starting statistics (Alas, not only statistics) dramatically.
Arcanum gave players a chance to choose a "background" which was the same adv/disadv mix. And they threw in the "beauty" stat as well.
The Lionhead team is apparently planning to give you a remarkable chance to play as a pregnant woman, bless their poor Gear Heads.
I was under impression that you did not mind that, Des, did you?
It is all being done to enhance the role-playing and replayability. It matters to many people. Plus not everybody likes powergaming. People choose the hardcore settings, opt for the permanent death, play solo, do not reload, create less powerful characters etc. The more options the better, including the "recommended" human male (absolutely romanceless) fighter with auto-generated "recommended" stats and feats.
My point is not about heavy-weight stats you have to tweak constantly for a large party of 8 (*shudder*). It is about multiple choices a good RPG gives you.
So, once again, why should the gender be a pure esthetical choice?